Stephen Harper, Canada‘s last Conservative prime minister, was invited to speak at a defense seminar last Friday and interacted with attendees. He argued that the current world order has reverted to a cold war between two superpowers, but this Time between the United States and the former Soviet Union instead of the United States and China.
The Defence Symposium, organized by the Ottawa-based Canadian Institute, is usually held annually prior to the International Security and Defence Conference, and this year was the 89th edition, held by video link.
Harper, who served as Canada’s 22nd prime minister for nine years from 2006, quit politics after his Conservative Party was defeated by Trudeau’s Liberal Party in the November 2015 election. He has served as president of the International Democratic Alliance since 2018. The coalition is made up of seven political parties and groups in 63 countries and is a right-of-center conservative international organization.
Speaking at a defense conference Friday, Harper said that while a middle power like Canada would be involved in the competition between the two powers, it lacks the economic and military clout to make a decisive difference in the outcome. It’s true that a middle power like Canada can play a role and should play a role,” he said. But that doesn’t mean that we can set the agenda independently of the two giants.”
Russia now relegated to “spoiler”
After World War II, Harper said, the United States and its allies fought a long Cold War with the Soviet Union and its satellites. While Russia remains “strategically important” today, its economy has been relatively small since the collapse of the Soviet Union and is not on par with that of today’s China and the United States. That makes it the biggest disruptor of the world order,” along with other rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. “They are hacks, saboteurs and profit-minded.”
Harper also spoke of the waning power of the U.S. and China. He said that while the United States remains the “dominant force” in the world, its period as the dominant or overwhelming force is waning. “And China has become a competitor to the United States in a number of areas, including economics, security, and competition for social systems.”
Harper also cited differences between the new Cold War and its predecessors, such as the fact that none of the blocs surrounding the two superpowers are as well defined now as they were during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. There is another twist: “The rivalry is intense and evolving, but there is also a degree of interdependence between the two sides. And there was no such dependence during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.”
Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden meets with Xi Jinping in Beijing in December 2013
U.S. leadership role waning
Harper cited a “dramatic change” since he left the Canadian prime ministership in 2015 as a sign that the traditional leadership role of the United States in the free world is diminishing, largely due to the isolationist policies of former U.S. President Donald Trump, which have become the “mainstream of American politics. ” mainstream.
At the same time, Europe “is no longer an active participant in international peace and security affairs.
Harper believes that China has become more aggressive and “hegemonic” over the past few years and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, regardless of any change in leadership. If China’s standard of living reaches the level of sophistication it seeks in the West, “it will mean an economy three times the size of that of the United States in its heyday. Not only does it have an authoritarian system, but it wants to spread it around the world. And that’s the thing not to be taken lightly.”
Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, such as India, are trying to jump the fence and enter the superpower category, Harper said. They will strengthen their economic ties with China while strengthening their security partnership with the United States in an effort to protect themselves from hegemonic ambitions.
Harper also spoke about the strategies that Canada should adopt in response. One of the challenges, he argued, is how to stop Chinese state-owned enterprises from controlling Canada’s resource sector. He said the Conservative government was already taking steps to prevent that from happening when it came to power. And now, Canada should never allow Chinese technology giants like huawei or ZTE to participate in core data and technology services, including the development of 5G wireless networks.
He specifically mentioned this because the current Canadian Liberal government has yet to make a final decision, even though other countries in Canada’s “Five Eyes” coalition have banned Huawei from participating in 5G networks.
According to Harper, the “technology divide” between China and the West is inevitable because the two societies have very different attitudes toward the use of technology. In the West, he said, there are concerns that large technology companies are “invading privacy, spying on people and misusing personal data. In China, however, “the entire national technology system is designed for this purpose and serves the government.
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